


A Time for Reflection

by rubberchickencircuit



Category: Scooby Doo - All Media Types, Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated (TV 2010)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 02:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2450699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubberchickencircuit/pseuds/rubberchickencircuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-series. Velma finally tells Marcie all about the old timeline. What does it feel like to learn that you died and came back?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Time for Reflection

When you care enough about someone, you want them to know.

"Fasten your seatbelt, Marcie. It's gonna be a bumpy night."

That's why there was an evening when—on her first visit back home from Miskatonic University—Velma Dinkley sadly, haltingly told Marcie Fleach all about their experiences in the old timeline. Velma leavened the story with half-smiles and clever raised eyebrows, and tried hard to keep too much pain from showing. But there was pain in those "undone" events; pain in how the Scooby Gang had solved the mystery beneath Crystal Cove.

"Avoidable suffering is the basic human experience," Velma deadpanned. "That's why there are _Full House_ reruns." She hoped a little humor might lighten the mood; but she unconsciously held Marcie's hand like something burned deep.

Over minutes, over hours, Velma told Marcie about the Evil Entity, and the earlier Mystery Incorporated group; now all fortysomethings who, deluded by the Entity's brainwaves, forged their way through deep caverns to find this horrid Great Old One and set it free. Pawns and helpmates had given them the clues they needed.

"Let me get this straight, V. I was a crook? I costumed myself as a monster."

"You were used by monsters. But you had the strength to break free and help us again. You were _good_."

"I... would never _not_ be...?" Marcie still wondered where dreams met reality.

But Velma forged on; telling Marcie how and why Mystery Incorporated, _her_ Mystery Incorporated, were not killed in cold blood by their brainwashed forerunners. The "bad guys"—the term seemed so abstractly childish, now—had several dozen dangerous robot soldiers, and a horribly intelligent parrot as their guide.

They also also had a hostage. A hostage who turned the tables.

"It was _you_ , Marcie," said Velma, visibly a little awed by the memory. "You grabbed Professor Pericles, throttled him, and held off his team till we got though the portal onto the bridge." Marcie's eyes widened.

Velma went on. "Jinkies—you were our _key_ to escaping alive. To reaching the Evil Entity first... and figuring out the limits of its power. So even though we couldn't keep the Entity from being freed, we could kill it afterward. We could _erase_ it."

A pained look washed over Velma's face. "And that... erased its entire history of creepy influence over the town."

Expectant Marcie looked on, as if about to hear the happy-ever-after of a fairy tale. But something was wrong; Velma still had that funny pained look. Finally she continued. "B-bringing back all the people who... died. Though they... don't know it. They have slightly different memories and pasts, now."

"V, what's with the heavy breathing?... Oh, God." Marcie suddenly realized.

"That's right. When you had Pericles subdued, I told you I couldn't leave you; but you _made_ me go. You knew my duty was... was too important. You told me you'd see me when this was over..."

Velma swallowed. It was so hard to be this direct, this real. Finally she forced it out.

"...and then Scooby and I were on the bridge, and we heard the Krieg Staffel Bots' guns behind us... Jesus, Marcie... and I forced Scooby to keep going, because I didn't dare go back. I knew you were gone... murdered. And it was _tearing me apart_."

Marcie mouthed the word "No," but Velma's choked-up voice spoke volumes; this was inescapably what she knew to be the truth. So there really _had_ been this other Crystal Cove, where Marcie herself had led a more painful life—even becoming a criminal, apparently—and then growing past it, entirely because Velma was there for her. And then this sacrifice.

"...And that's why I miss you even when you’re here," Velma said. She finished her story with watery eyes; leaving Marcie, it seemed, to try and console them both.

"V, at least I made it," she offered. "Sort of. I mean, with your Entity gone, I guess I was... rebooted? This is just as hard for me."

"It’s a little like—like you’re your own ghost."

"Heh. If it’s easier to think of it that way, sure," Marcie said with a wan half-smile. "My third time as your monster-of-the-week, I guess."

"But there’s no mask to look under."

"Well… there’s a _me_ who died, under the surface in a dead reality. And from one day to the next, the _you_ in my world _knew_. I’d never have wanted you not to tell me, right? ‘Knowledge is power’…” She smirked, and let it hang.

"Unh." Velma shook her head at the childish catchphrase.

"But ignorance is bliss," Marcie continued, "and you have to be _stronger_ to know. I mean, if you’d told Sheriff frickin’ Stone, he wouldn’t even _believe_ it. _You_ had to go on that road trip to get used to it. And your mom—”

"Marcie, I’ve told Mom a little. Thank God she’d barely changed."

"But me—the old me _hurt_ other people. And I got hurt. Permanently.”

"Only after you _saved my life,_ " Velma said, touching Marcie firmly with one arm. "Don’t ever forget that.”

"Strike a match, scratch the surface," said the other, shaking her head. "It’s easier when the gloom and doom isn’t your own."

Velma paused, unsure of how to respond.

"What if I remember for _real_ one day?" Marcie continued. "Don’t let me _break_... for caring too much.”

"Never," Velma spat out, as if defying the world. "There _can’t_ be too much. So, logically, I… (snif) can’t let you break."

Marcie shivered. "V, p-please get to the part where you hug me."

" _Now_."

* * * * *

Today Velma and Marcie enjoy telling each other stories of their alternate-timeline pasts; almost as if they were made-up, with the girls poking each other in mild amazement as they hear about a “new” memory for the first time. Just like if you, too, deeply loved someone who’d been through a time warp a little differently. It's so odd when science fiction becomes science fact.

"V, what was it like when we met? Your version."

"Mmm... second grade. Same class, same imaginatively-titled unit: 'Science Can Be Fun.' I showed how a kitten's fur carries static electricity. You tried to show how soap bubbles form, but my kitten got more attention. I felt bad, but when I came over to say sorry, you threw your soap at me..."

"And that's how we became rivals, huh? In this reality, I guess I got brought up better; I didn't throw anything, I just sulked. You leaned close, and pointed to the other kids; and said, 'I don't care if _they_ don't like bubbles...'"

"'... _I do_.' That's what I'd _planned_ to say."

"Yep. In my memory, you really said it. And we spent the rest of the day sitting in the playground... blowing bubbles... and watching them fly away."

"Marcie, is it too late?... I mean to do it _now_."

Shoes and sweaters are hastily pulled on; dusty plastic bubble wands recovered from a box in an upstairs closet. Then the two college girls lie outside in the grass; sometimes absently waving their wands, and dipping their fingers in the soap, and tasting it; and sometimes just gazing up at the autumn sky as they lean heavy on each other, close and warm.

"V, we’ll never figure out all the discrepancies," says Marcie. "But if we thought we knew it all, we’d never be scientists.”

"Marcie, can you hold me together?"

"Always, V. _Always_.”

They watch the bubbles gently rising out of sight.


End file.
